A good friend of mine has been an experiencing an ongoing problem in her life for years now. She texted another episode to our friend group this morning. I recommended that she go through her texts, and to make a timeline of this issue and how many times she has experienced the pain and the hurt from this same situation again and again. It really helps to have this kind of thing put on to paper. When you visually see facts, and dates, and times, all laid out on a timeline, it helps to make sense of what is happening in your life, without emotions, or exaggerating, or romanticizing what has gone on. I have done this many times in my life with different situations. It is a big part of my keeping a daily journal. It keeps me honest and it gives me clarity. It shows me patterns, and the parts that I play in the patterns of my life. If you are having an ongoing issue with a person, or a job, or even yourself and your own behaviors, create a factual timeline of what, who, when, where and how, and see if you can make some sense of it all. See if you want to continue the pattern of your timeline, or if there are changes that you can make to put an endpoint to this one particular timeline/saga of your life. When we study history, we look at timelines all day long. Why do we study history? So we can learn to not repeat past mistakes, and to create better pathways for our future. Assignment for the day: Pick a problem that’s been eating at you, and create a timeline of that situation. Go through your calendars, your journals, your texts, your memory banks, your pictures, your social media . . . whatever tools that you have to help you to create your timeline. Get interested in yourself. Your life itself, is its own timeline. Visually see what this timeline of yours looks like, and make sure that you want to continue in the direction that you see this timeline going in.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.